text:
Tom Phillips
News and updates by the artist.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Heart of Darkness is nominated for a South Bank Sky Arts Award. Something to (Melvyn) Bragg about. In the opera category we are bitterly pitted against Hector Berlioz in a lavish (and brilliant) production of The Damnation of Faust by my old friend Terry Gilliam. O'Regan versus Berlioz: it's a tough draw. You will hear about it if we win, but expect silence. At least I can look forward on Tuesday 1st May at the Dorchester ceremony to raising a glass as old Hector B shuffles up to Melvyn to accept the prize...
A new website, handsomely styled and edited by Lucy Shortis and Steve Xerri, will appear soon and incorporate this blog. Information to follow: watch this space: do not adjust your set.
Alan Oke (Marlow) and Njabulo Madlala (Thames Captain) in Heart of Darkness.
A new website, handsomely styled and edited by Lucy Shortis and Steve Xerri, will appear soon and incorporate this blog. Information to follow: watch this space: do not adjust your set.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Seventy Fifth Birthday News
Seventy fifth birthday looming up and a small self fest to celebrate.
The new and updated 5th edition of A Humument will be published by Thames & Hudson on 24th May.
24th May (the birthday itself) is also varnishing day at the RA where I'll be showing tennis balls and 5 new prints in the Summer Exhibition.
25th May going local again with a substantial exhibition namely of prints at GX Gallery.
On 26th a show of new work will open at Flowers East.
Will be doing a reading from A Humument at Review Bookshop on 30th May.
Will be doing a reading from A Humument at Review Bookshop on 30th May.
For the Flowers show I seem to be in the middle of a group of a dozen or so pastels. Pastels again, yes. Somehow I find myself in tune with paper and charcoal and chalk and pastel and especially with the rubbing out of same, working backwards, erasing away, letting the paper do the white work… more like finding a sculpture inside a messy bit of wood; subtracting, getting rid of, carving back.
How it Ended Up, Pastel, 2012, h61cm x w46cm
Also on birthday number 75, an update to A Humument App for iPad and iPhone comes out on iTunes, and a brand new, redesigned Tom Phillips website will be launched (more about that soon). In the following week I shall be on the road again for the fortieth sampling of 20 Sites n Years.
Blog readers are invited to the private view of my show at GX Gallery, Camberwell on the 25th May, and the opening at Flowers East on the 26th May.
I hope to bump into all three of you at one or the other of these events.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Shameless Christmas Marketing Plug from our sponsors...
We can't absolutely guarantee to get it to you before Christmas but, here's a special offer valid until the end of the year. Choose two from the new selection of six humument fragments available now from 57talfourd.com and we will give you a third humument fragment print free of charge - if you buy before 31st December. Just fill in your third choice in the message field in Paypal. Go on, knock yourself out. Happy Christmas.
Heart of Darkness and A Humument fifth edition
Photograph Catherine Ashmore
Herewith a link to the Observer's account (not on this occasion by their chief critic since one cannot be blown by one's own strumpet) and one from that independent and often contentious blogger who sidles to his seat under the name of operacreep.
Tarik and I gave talks before the shows and it was he that pointed out that the first email exchange about the project was in 2002. Not quite ten years before the mast but a long haul. It already seems unlikely that this will be our last collaboration.
With the opera launched, Cicero published, and the Olympic Coin minted, time for fresh woods and pastures new: in this case to join those who have stumbled at the wide brooks and the high fences of translating Rilke. But this is an even longer venture hoping to have text and pictures for all the Duino Elegies (which the loftiest poet of the 20th century started in 1912) ready in a couple of years.
Meanwhile, the longest term of all my projects, A Humument heads for its fifth revised edition in the New Year. I have written a new introduction that has now come through a protracted battle with copy editors who do not like semi-colons. There are more than fifty newly revised pages. Although these were delivered with the introduction to Thames & Hudson only last week, the book has already appeared on Amazon.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Coin for the Olympics
Design for 2012 Olympics Silver kilo coin, 2011, watercolour.
Gutted by yet again being passed over for a place in our Olympics table tennis team I had resigned myself to having no role in the 2012 Olympiad. A phone call from Kevin Clancy at the Royal Mint changed all that, with a request to design a silver coin (face value £500) weighting a kilo to celebrate the games. Thus I was paired with Tony Caro who was making a gold coin of the same weight in the novel Olympic event of synchronised coin stamping. Luckily the theme of my own design was team sports which let me off the business of the inevitable action images of multicultural sportspersons. Apart from a drawn out dispute as to whether it was XXX Olympiad or Olympiad XXX, in which I came out the loser, all went smoothly.
The coin features bunting (which as a wartime child always signifies to me a mood of celebration) to form a sun and, in negative, a multiple Olympic flame. This motif is surrounded by a verse I made to recall the original ideal of the games UNITE OUR DREAMS TO MAKE THE WORLD A TEAM OF TEAMS. Obliged to incorporate the ghastly logo of the London Olympiad I managed to shrink it to the size of the full stop which punctuates the text.
Sir Anthony Caro and Tom Phillips, 2012, photo David Parry.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
When you meet someone you haven't encountered for sixty years you shouldn't be surprised to find them changed utterly. So it is in my case with Tully, as Marcus Tullius Cicero was always referred to by our classics master. I well remember the long feared exposure of my shaky grasp of Latin when singled out to stand up in class to read out and translate a tortuous paragraph from the Orations.
Almost a caricature of pedagogic dryness this teacher never once hinted at Virgil's epic swagger or let on that Horace was a cunning and sexy satirist. They were there, it seemed, to show that Latin was horrible and hard; with Tully the toughest of the bunch.
Horace and Virgil yielded to later reading but the idea of revisiting Cicero was like being summoned once more to stand outside the headmaster's door, awaiting reprimand or punishment.
The opposite, as Cicero himself might have said, would prove to be the case. Having riskily agreed to accompany some of the Orations with pictures (illustrations doesn't somehow seem to be the right word) I plunged anew into the once detested text.
I was amazed to find that today was two thousand years old. Same cast, same evils. The knuckle-rapping invective sometimes read like a rediscovered Pompeian copy of Private Eye: only the barmy army of religionists was missing. All the crime, corruption and political skulduggery of the age of Bush and Blair was well matched. In the Rome of today, the outrageous Silvio Berlusconi whose lifestyle and morality as a statesman were pre-echoed blemish for blemish in the Philippics against Mark Anthony.
Dissatisfied with the translations that I looked at I found my dim Latin was just enough to illuminate the wit and invention of the prose and to recognise all those verbal strategies of orators I have heard in my lifetime, from Churchill to Obama.
I took the most famous tag of all, O Tempora O Mores, as a kind of leitmotiv... the best translation (if one adds an exclamation mark) being Trollope's title The Way We Live Now. This I made into a mosaic, variously interfered with to produce O Amores, O Mores etc. Making guest appearances in the book, in addition to Berlusconi, are Fidel Castro, Mick Jagger, Catullus, Christine Keeler, Julius Caesar, Dante's Beatrice, Agatha Christie, The Elgin Marbles, Vincenza Foppa, Mussolini and a London smuggler of antiquities who shall remain anonymous.
Cicero: Orations is soon to be published by the Folio Society. Copies may be purchased in their online shop http://www.foliosociety.com/
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Ornament, pencil 2011, 30cm diameter
Long ago I teamed myself up with Jessica Rawson to prepare an exhibition at the Royal Academy that would define and celebrate Ornament. We made a trip to the vaults of the Vatican to start the hunt for likely exhibits, and travelled to Vienna to continue the search. It was there over supper at the Sacher Hotel that we discussed in earnest what the show would say and what it might contain.
We questioned each other's choices of the previous days. It soon emerged that our concepts of ornament, its nature, status and role in art were quite different; in effect irreconcilably opposed. With tempers frayed we retired to our respective rooms.
I intended, before finally turning in, to jot down a few clarifying notes, but eventually sat up half the night composing a manifesto that I could read out to Jessica (and to Simonetta Fraquelli who was with us) over breakfast. I only half realised that this would mark the end of the collaboration and the evaporation of the project as a whole. It was this polemical pamphlet that some months later I presented at the RA's Architecture Forum.
Ornament frequently creeps into what I do, usually by way of borders and framing devices. That it was on my mind at the time can be seen in the drawings that obliterate the many agendas and minutes of Merry Meetings (D3 Editions 2005) including its cover illustration.
On my return from Vienna, remembering Derrida's contention that the margins are at the centre, I set about an ambitious exercise in pure ornamental mode. I soon got lost in its improvised and unsystematic convolutions and set it aside as unsolvable. My artistic performance had not matched my rhetoric.
I have now retired from the business of formal portrait painting and stepped down from committees. Taking advantage of new resultant gaps of time I could return to the drawing abandoned so many months ago. Unravelling and reravelling I managed at last to bring it off.
Duino Ornament, h42cm x w29cm, 2011
I made a smaller coloured version, making minor adjustments to balance the field of energy. To this I added, as if to challenge the ornament's autonomy, the opening words from Rilke's first Duino Elegy which kept running through my mind; with various translations forming and reforming as I worked. Not a title but an accompaniment. Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel / Ordnungen? Perhaps this could be the official badge of the order of angels.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Vintage People on Photo Postcards
The transfer of my archive to the Bodleian Library might have felt like parcelling up one foot and posting it direct to the grave. But it has not been like that at all: the opposite in fact, for out of that arrangement has come new life for a long cherished project.
For twenty years I have been collecting real photo postcards of anonymous people. They all date from that period when portraiture suddenly became democratised. At the beginning of the twentieth century all manner of people, not just the wealthy, could for the first time in history possess their likenesses. What resulted was an inadvertent and unofficial visual census of the country.
Out of over a million of such cards that have passed though my hands I have brought together fifty thousand or so which now, in albums and boxes, crowd out what passes for my kitchen. They are grouped under titles that announce the obsessive typologist, Two Men, Tree, Pram, Bather, Nurse etc.
I exhibited a selection of these cards in 2004 at the National Portrait Gallery in a show whose catalogue, We Are The People should now be seen as a trailer to this current series of books published by the Bodleian itself. Readers was the natural first title in what promises to be an extensive but not expensive sequence produced by one of the world's great libraries.
Issued at the same time was Women & Hats. Weddings and Bicycles appeared soon after with the same generic rubric Vintage People on Photo Postcards. All four are now available and more are to follow. Watch this space: start clearing a shelf.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Word Cross
Word Cross, wire 1997 |
One of the strange aspects of an artist's job is that most of the time you are doing something no one has asked you to do; things that, since they do not as yet exist, no one could ask you to do. Sometimes they may of course be things that no one will ever require you to have done. It is a chancy life of uncontingent imperatives.
I first exhibited this Word Cross at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1997. Caroline Gould, a parishioner of Farningham, a small village in Kent, showed a great interest in securing it for her church, even though it is an expensive and doctrinally controversial object. I can only too readily imagine what efforts of planning and persuasion led, after many months of discussion, to its eventual acquisition this year. There was just time for me to have it shipped back from New York where it had been on show, and delivered to Farningham church on the Thursday of Easter Week. Luckily the installation (at a spot we had worked out together with the help of paper models) could be effected in the few hours before the appropriate Good Friday service for its dedication. The picture shows that it will soon look as if, simultaneously modern and mediaeval, it has always been there. At a time when the artworld has become a bloated thing like a celebrity based branch of the stock exchange, it is very satisfying to make a real and seriously thoughtful transaction.
They also serve that only stand and wait...
Word Cross at St Peter & St Paul, Farningham 2011 |
Monday, March 28, 2011
Nothing like a regular client...
Fifty years ago I sold (for £12) my first picture to a proper collection, that of the JCR of Pembroke College, Oxford. This was a watercolour called The City. Last month this same Junior Common Room made a second purchase, slightly smaller for a slightly higher price. In their now splendidly hung gallery these two works, though separated in time by half a century hang merely inches apart.
My present self remembers painting The City as an undergraduate in my Walton Crescent lodgings but my past self could not have imagined making Rima's Song... and would probably not have been able to identify it as mine, or even to have 'understood' it.
The City, 1958, gouache.
Rima has quite a role in fiction. She is not only the jungle girl of W. H. Hudson's Green Mansions but the heroine of H. W. K. Collam's Come Autumn Hand, from which came the idea of my largest drawing, Rima's Wall. Her name is also, by nice coincidence, an anagram of Irma, the femme fatale of A Human Document (and hence A Humument). I was more than delighted, rummaging in a New York vintage comics store, to come across her again, once more a jungle goddess in tales like Safari of Death from Rima a short lived DC comics series from the seventies, brilliantly drawn by the enviably named Filipino artist Nestor Redondo.
Rima's Wall, 1991-2, pastel, h220cms x w1150cms
The Rima in Collam's story is less exotic, and cherishes an album of esoteric postcards. Using material from the DC comics I echoed them in a series of postcard-sized collages. Rima's Song is one of these, and one of my many attempts to convey the look and feel of music by means of an abstract notation; a song without words or specified tones. All the tiny fragments that make up this miniature metascore come from Redondo's harmonious colours and fine-tuned marks.
I was very impressed when the young committee members lighted upon this small and unassuming piece. To be truthful I was almost dismayed since it is a favourite thing I had half intended to keep. But it has found a good home not far from the Ashmolean which contains quite a comprehensive collection of my drawings, and the Bodleian which houses my archive. Fifty years ago the committee's predecessors chose the best thing on offer and their present members have more or less done it again. Artists be warned: if the Pembroke people come knocking at your door, they have very sharp eyes.
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
App for iPhone
To celebrate the appearance of A Humument App on iPhone I shall shortly add a dozen or so newly revised pages. The first to change will be page 1 (which is what one sees on opening the app) in its original version done in 1967 not long after textual intercourse, for me, began. The standard introductory phrase of a would-be epic, the Virgilian/Miltonic I Sing has to remain of course. What most cried out for change was the somewhat tentative surround. Here it is in its new livery as trailer for adaptations to come.
The strangest affect of my possession of an iPad (I do not have an iPhone) is that I have become my own consumer. Each night after midnight when the daily page first announces itself I consult, somewhat furtively (even though alone), the Oracle that I have made. I am often surprised by pages made long ago and almost forgotten, as well as by the sometimes uncanny predictions they offer their maker.
Friday, January 21, 2011
The Remains of the Day (My Painting Epilogue I)
The Remains of the Day, 2011, recycled acrylic palettes on board, h41 x w76.5cm
It's all Daphne's fault. Meeting my friend the admirable portrait painter Daphne Todd at Green & Stones in the King's Road (the last true artist's shop in London) I saw that she had bought a pad of disposable palettes. She said she always used them... so practical, no more cleaning palettes at the end of a working session etc. I said I thought they were meant for amateurs but I would give them a go; and anyway I had just used up my three wooden palettes making Beckett Again and had been about to buy a new one.
So, for the whole of the reworking of Quantum Poetics I used them for mixing colours and for making the cumulative mix for the current Terminal Grey canvas. Always aiming to be the Compleat Recycler I did not however dispose of them but let them pile up and dry in the corner of the studio.
Nor did I discard the sturdy tray that Andy had made to house the panels of Quantum Poetics as I was painting them, and on which I cleaned my brushes as I proceeded.
One day looking at these curling, flimsy but paint laden palettes I had a taste of that epiphany that visited Kandinsky a hundred years ago when he observed that the mixtures and random conjunctions of colours on his palette were perhaps more exciting than the picture he was painting.
I could see that the verve of the brushwork and the sliding and colliding (often called 'painterly') of colours were events that had largely eluded me in my work, as was the physical presence of paint itself that French artists call matière.
How to harness this observed energy was the problem. Boulez (quoting Sibelius) says that, to compose, 'one must take delirium and organise it'.
I got Andy to make a single panel that would exactly fit his tray frame (now itself covered in streaks of paint, plus the odd brushed-in memo or telephone number). I made a border for the panel of square sections of Terminal Greys gathered from the palettes, to link it with my original recycling project started over forty years ago. This made a frame within the frame. Then I started to build an improvisatory mosaic of choice fragments of colour and texture, following where the emerging shapes led, sticking down the little rectangles piece by piece with acrylic medium. Scissors, scalpel, straight-edge and glue brush was all the equipment I needed, and, once stuck down the pieces remained with no revision allowed.
I call the picture The Remains of the Day, a recycled title from Ishiguro's novel which would appear to be in turn a recycling of Sigmund Freud's Rückstände des Tages, the daily residue of impressions that make the basic recipe for a later encoded dream.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Brushes with the future
Having downloaded the Brushes app on my iPad I was keen to try it out. An evening at the venerable London Sketch Club armed with no other drawing tools put me nicely on the spot.
With half hour poses being the order of the day I had four chances to make a fool of myself (since being so oddly equipped made me an object of curiosity). Luckily I could quickly press the bin ikon and trash my first three attempts which went sadly out of control. By the last pose I was almost getting the hang of it and produced something like a drawing I could honourably leave on the screen. So I count this my first effort. Certainly in terms of new technology it is a Sketch Club First, though essentially it seemed old fashioned as I held my reminder of a child's tablet to work on. Drawing with my finger, moreover, seemed virtually prehistoric.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Biochemical Society Medal
This is the Biochemical Society's highest honour made to celebrate its hundredth anniversary and much as I would like it to be mine as a result of spectacular research in Biochemistry I am here showing it off merely as designer.
It was Martin Kemp who suggested my name to the Society and Sheila Alink-Brunsdon who saw it through the usual controversies.
As soon as I spotted a translucent cabuchon of fossilised coral at a mineralogical shop in New York I felt that this would make a marvellous insert to enliven a medal that was more the size of a coaster than a coin. My thought was that this living organism had been transformed through long chemistry into its mirroring self in mineral form. The Very Intelligent Designer had scored once again in reflecting a structural complex that could be cosmic, miscroscopic, cellular or stellar in scale. It has become one of the endless pleasures of looking at pictures in Scientific American to guess whether they are of some event in space or some tiny happening in the world of the infinitely small, so similar do they seem in their patternings.
The hardest part of the operation was getting flat discs of the fossil coral which eventually came from far off in Surinam, via Tucson to the ever helpful Ammonite 2000 Ltd. in Pimlico Road. This took a long time to arrange but since the coral had been some millions of years in the making a few more weeks did not seem to matter much. Only 2mm thick they admit the light that reveals their delicate structure when the medal is held up.
The medal is otherwise made of pure Brittania silver which has a lovely weight and feel, and the whole was expertly manufactured by Fattorini.
Design for Biochemical Society Medal, 2009, Pencil drawing.
Monday, November 22, 2010
A Humument App
On returning from Princeton the big excitement at Peckham HQ is presiding over the final birth throes of my Humument app for iPad which is now up and running thanks to midwives Lucy and Alice, consultant Jonathan Hills and the surgical expertise of John Bowring.
So, safely delivered it shows, in colours more glowing that my pens and paints could achieve, almost like church windows at times, the whole of A Humument, including very recent pages. And all at full size, together with a device for using the book as an oracle in the manner of the randomised predictions of the I Ching (though on the iPad a little internal jiggery-pokery replaces the never quite available yarrow sticks).
Very soon after starting the book in the sixties I dreamed of its use as an oracle and it has taken forty years for technology to make that possible.
So if you have an iPad you should go straight to A Humument in the app store and have a look. If you do not have an iPad a word to Father Christmas might do the trick. If you only have an iPhone, well stick around: there will be a miniature version early next year.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Flowers NYC opening
Back once again on Einstein Drive after an enjoyable opening at Flowers, my first in their splendid new gallery on W20th. The usual loyal and loved suspects turned up i.e. Ruth and Marvin Sackner (with their brilliant grandson), John Pull (bravely after illness) and Richard Minsky, who brought with him one of my heroes, the 94 year old George Braziller, whose book on Albert Pinkham Ryder that I read fifty years ago became (and, perhaps now invisibly, remains) a real inspiration.
Who else should be mentioned in despatches? My lone East Coast blogwatcher, John, and Virginia late of the Folger and, oh yes... a chinese/american lady who went round putting noughts on the price list so that everything was in millions. She also offered me spectacular apres vernissage sexual services, but I opted for a good supper instead, hosted by Matthew, at which we all toasted Brent who had made such an elegant job of hanging and lighting.
Who else should be mentioned in despatches? My lone East Coast blogwatcher, John, and Virginia late of the Folger and, oh yes... a chinese/american lady who went round putting noughts on the price list so that everything was in millions. She also offered me spectacular apres vernissage sexual services, but I opted for a good supper instead, hosted by Matthew, at which we all toasted Brent who had made such an elegant job of hanging and lighting.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Rail Diversions & Flowers NYC
My railings have just been officially unveiled at no1 Grafton Street... nice for a veteran Monopoly player to have at last a stake in Mayfair. There was no mention in the opening speech (by the developer's grand fromage) of Future City who nursed the project from beginning to end or of MDM who actually made the work. I took the opportunity however, in the customary 'few words from the artist', pointedly to make amends. It was a rum affair in a virtual world, entirely attended apart from my own two invitees, Jeremy King and Nick Tite, by men in identical suits. With much relief and thanks to Jeremy, Nick and I quickly repaired to the Wolsely.
On the way to Grafton St I looked in at Westminster Cathedral to catch a glimpse of the new mosaic of St David recently blessed by the Pope. This occupies a space I had been allotted for my own design of the same subject, once approved but recently rejected through some clerical skullduggery, or Madonna, or Maradonna and the Hand of God. It would have had to be pretty impressive to have broken through my vanity and professional pride to gain approval. There was however no problem in that it is a spangly confection that looks to be largely made of boiled sweets. More interesting perhaps was to notice a small group of conspicuously gay men looking up at my mosaic of Cardinal Newman, himself elected last month to the company of the Blessed and therefore on the fast track to sainthood. Could they have been prospecting for their future patron saint? Might I inadvertently have created a gay ikon? Newman is currently one miracle short of a halo. Might this eventually, and ironically, be it?
I am currently installed at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and keeping an eye on my imminent exhibition in New York. Any of my East Coast readers, or all three of them, are invited to the opening on the 7th October. Do say hello if you turn up.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Anyone for Tennis?
At last after a few years of squint and tweezers I have assembled, like the notes of an octave, a set of seven well-tempered tennis balls. They are meant to match Shakespeare's seven ages of man. A lawn-green stand (crafted by MDM) serves as their support.
The strokes of time are measured in the deciduous changes of my own hair applied to shaved tennis balls. They register the passing years by one of those annual markers like Easter or the Lord's Test Match, in this case the great tennis fixture of the summer in South London. A distorted line, again from Shakespeare, echoes in my head... and all our Wimbledons have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Magnificent but cheerless. Perhaps I should have settled for T.S. Eliot's finer scale... I have measured out my life in Wimbledons.
It is an enigmatic object seen as a whole and certainly speaks of something. If I completely knew what it said it would not then have been something worth saying. Such is art.
See it at Flowers Gallery, W 20th St., New York from October 7th (Private view 6-8pm).
This is not the end of hair however. I'm still growing the stuff. One of my dreams has been to make a hat out of my own hair, a fine chapeau d'artiste, or elegant fedora. What better headgear in the event of baldness than a homegrown hat replacing absent hair with its past self. Now that dream has come a little nearer... (to be continued).
The strokes of time are measured in the deciduous changes of my own hair applied to shaved tennis balls. They register the passing years by one of those annual markers like Easter or the Lord's Test Match, in this case the great tennis fixture of the summer in South London. A distorted line, again from Shakespeare, echoes in my head... and all our Wimbledons have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Magnificent but cheerless. Perhaps I should have settled for T.S. Eliot's finer scale... I have measured out my life in Wimbledons.
It is an enigmatic object seen as a whole and certainly speaks of something. If I completely knew what it said it would not then have been something worth saying. Such is art.
See it at Flowers Gallery, W 20th St., New York from October 7th (Private view 6-8pm).
This is not the end of hair however. I'm still growing the stuff. One of my dreams has been to make a hat out of my own hair, a fine chapeau d'artiste, or elegant fedora. What better headgear in the event of baldness than a homegrown hat replacing absent hair with its past self. Now that dream has come a little nearer... (to be continued).
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
I'll go on (continued)
Like those stages of the World Cup in which England feebly participated my painting Quantum Poetics has turned into a game of two halves. What, in a recent issue of Turps, claimed to be the almost finished thing ended up vague and veiled and somehow incomplete. It called for a complete revision. I added, by way of injury time, a further section of panels to its right wing painted in a different (major rather than minor) key and hung the whole work in the ping pong room of my other studio, where I could not escape its gaze.
The new section declared even more emphatically what was wrong so I took half the painting back to the Talfourd Road studio and set about revising it. It thus became a game of two studios. Now at last I have reworked this part and have reached the scary moment of bringing it back to join the unreworked half. The complete picture looks now like one of those telling illustrations of an old master that has only been partly cleaned; as if these new colours and somewhat revised drawing were what had been hidden underneath all the time. The whistle has not yet blown. I'll go on.
Also revised as a game of two sides rather than two objects is the relevant Beckett piece. Now this splits the quotation to either side of a single palette. This could be mounted to face me entering and leaving the studio, showing whichever part of the quotation would be appropriate to the beginning or end of the day's work. I think I favour facing I'll go on in the morning and I can't go on in the evening. That's how it sometimes feels.
[See it at Flowers, New York in my exhibition which opens on October 8th. Readers of this are invited to the private view on the 7th].
The new section declared even more emphatically what was wrong so I took half the painting back to the Talfourd Road studio and set about revising it. It thus became a game of two studios. Now at last I have reworked this part and have reached the scary moment of bringing it back to join the unreworked half. The complete picture looks now like one of those telling illustrations of an old master that has only been partly cleaned; as if these new colours and somewhat revised drawing were what had been hidden underneath all the time. The whistle has not yet blown. I'll go on.
Also revised as a game of two sides rather than two objects is the relevant Beckett piece. Now this splits the quotation to either side of a single palette. This could be mounted to face me entering and leaving the studio, showing whichever part of the quotation would be appropriate to the beginning or end of the day's work. I think I favour facing I'll go on in the morning and I can't go on in the evening. That's how it sometimes feels.
[See it at Flowers, New York in my exhibition which opens on October 8th. Readers of this are invited to the private view on the 7th].
Beckett Again,
Flowers New York,
quantum poetics,
World Cup
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Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban apologized to the family of slain South Florida teenager Trayvon Martin for referencing "a black kid in a hoodie" during a controversial, nuanced discussion about prejudices and bigotries.
Cuban made the apology Thursday afternoon and elaborated on his thoughts expressed during an interview Wednesday with Inc. magazine in a series of tweets.
P/1: In hindsight I should have used different examples. I didn't consider the Trayvon Martin family, and I apologize to them for that.
- Mark Cuban (@mcuban) May 22, 2014P/2: beyond apologizing to the Martin family, I stand by the words and substance of the interview.
- Mark Cuban (@mcuban) May 22, 2014P/3: I think that helping people improve their lives, helping people engage with people they may fear or may not understand,
- Mark Cuban (@mcuban) May 22, 2014P/4: and helping people realize that while we all may have our prejudices and bigotries
- Mark Cuban (@mcuban) May 22, 2014P/5: we have to learn that it's an issue that we have to control, that it's part of my responsibility as an entrepreneur to try to solve it
- Mark Cuban (@mcuban) May 22, 2014Other than the apology to the Martin family, those tweets largely echoed Cuban's comments from the original interview, when he acknowledged having his own prejudices and bigotries and emphasized the importance of evolving as a society on such issues.
"In this day and age, this country has really come a long way putting any type of bigotry behind us, regardless of who it's toward," Cuban told Inc. magazine. "We've come a long way and with that progress comes a price. We're a lot more vigilant and we're a lot less tolerant of different views, and it's not necessarily easy for everybody to adapt or evolve.
"I mean, we're all prejudiced in one way or another. If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night, I'm walking to the other side of the street. And if on that side of the street, there's a guy that has tattoos all over his face -- white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere -- I'm walking back to the other side of the street. And the list goes on of stereotypes that we all live up to and are fearful of. So in my businesses, I try not to be hypocritical. I know that I'm not perfect. I know that I live in a glass house, and it's not appropriate for me to throw stones."
Cuban unintentionally evoked memories of the 2012 death of Martin, an unarmed black teenager who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and was shot to death by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood crime-watch volunteer who said he acted in self-defense and was acquitted by a jury. In the aftermath of that incident, LeBron James and Miami Heat players condemned the act by posting a photo of the entire team, all wearing hoodies, their heads bowed, their hands stuffed into their pockets.
Cuban's comments come at a particularly sensitive time for the NBA, which is in the midst of trying to force Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling to sell his team after he made racially charged comments caught on an audiotape. Sterling was banned for life and fined $2.5 million by NBA commissioner Adam Silver after the release of a TMZ recording in which he told a female friend, V. Stiviano, not to bring black people to Clippers games.
On Monday, Sterling was charged with damaging the league with his racist comments, and he has until Tuesday to respond to the charge. If Sterling does not respond by then, that would be grounds for termination. Silver's decision of a lifetime ban for Sterling is subject to a vote by NBA owners on June 3, with the commissioner needing three-quarters of the votes to enforce his decision.
Speaking at the annual GrowCo convention, hosted by Inc. magazine, on Wednesday in Nashville, Tennessee, Cuban said he knows how he'll vote but isn't ready to comment on it.
"There's no law against stupid," Cuban said when asked how to keep bigotry out of the NBA, according to the Tennessean. "I'm the one guy who says don't force stupid people to be quiet. I want to know who the morons are."
On the night before Silver's announcement of Sterling's lifetime ban, Cuban called Sterling's comments "abhorrent." However, he said that forcing Sterling to sell the Clippers would be a "very slippery slope."
Cuban pledged his full support of Silver's ruling after the fact, but he had been guarded on his comments on the subject since then until appearing at the GrowCo convention Wednesday, when he reportedly said that he hates that he might have to be hypocritical with his vote on the Sterling issue. The point Cuban attempted to make during his videotaped interview with Inc. magazine was the importance of helping people evolve with their prejudices and bigotries.
"I'll try to give them a chance to improve themselves, because I think that helping people improves their lives, helping people engage with people they may fear or may not understand and helping people realize that while we all may have our prejudices and bigotries we have to learn that it's an issue that we have to control, that it's part of my responsibility as an entrepreneur to try to solve it, not just to kick the problem down the road," Cuban said. "Because it does my company no good, it does my customers no good, it does society no good if my response to somebody and their racism and bigotry is to say, 'It's not right for you to be here. Go take your attitude somewhere else.'"

subset: commoncrawl


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Lucille D. Johns, 94, died Tuesday, March 15, 2005, at Chapman Convalescent Hospital in Riverside of natural causes.
She was born Feb. 6, 1911 in Breckenridge, Minn.
Mrs. Johns and her husband, Earl, who passed away March 6, 2002, loved Idyllwild where they would stay in the cabin they owned since 1959 every weekend or more. It was their favorite, happiest and most special place to be.
They both had many fond memories of Idyllwild and the cabin. They enjoyed working around the yard and working on the cabin. To the end of her life, Mrs. Johns talked about her mountain and her cabin.
Mr. Johns managed the Calelectric Power Co. in Idyllwild during the 1930s. The couple was married 72 years and both knew much of the history of Idyllwild, their favorite place on Earth.
Besides living in Idyllwild, Mrs. Johns lived in Riverside for 64 years and also had lived in Hemet and Elsinore.
She graduated from Riverside City College and had been a nurse. She also worked for the City of Riverside, the City's Engineers Office and the University of California, Riverside's Women's office.
Mrs. Johns was a member of the Riverside YWCA board and Eastern Star. She also was active in the Calvary Presbyterian Church.
Graveside services were held at 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 22 at Pierce Brothers Crestlawn Mortuary in Riverside.
She is survived by a daughter, Pat Altman of West Covina; four grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren.
Beside her husband, Mrs. Johns is preceded in death by two brothers, Robert and Harvey.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions be made to a charity of your choice.


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Industry Analysts Divided On How GTA V Will Affect Next-Gen Reception
GamesIndustry International recently interviewed a number of industry analysts about the influence that Grand Theft Auto V will have on next-generation console launch sales. GTA V is set to release on September 17 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. There has been no mention from either Rockstar or Take-Two about the game coming to next-gen.
Lewis Ward, an analyst at the International Data Corporation (IDC), says that American interest in next-gen consoles is weak. He believes we will be perfectly satisfied playing GTA V on current consoles. "…a lot of gamers are going to stick by their Xbox 360s, Wii/Wii Us, and PS3s at least until the 2014 holiday season, when the game catalog will be a lot bigger and some of the online kinks will have been worked out. That also means that games like GTA V should have plenty of runway to sell well in the meantime, as long as they deliver the goods."
Independent analyst Billy Pidgeon agrees, claiming that GTA V will likely set new sales records. "I'd expect the game to have a positive influence on [current-gen] hardware sales, particularly when bundled with hardware by retailers. If there are concurrent price drops for Xbox 360 and PS3, that positive effect will be even stronger."
Jesse Divnich, analyst and vice president for Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR), argues otherwise. "PlayStation 4 and Xbox One continue to stay at the top of the charts on Amazon.com. Consumers are clearly excited for the next generation of consoles to launch." Referring to GTA V, he stated, "I don't foresee one current generation game, no matter how large it is, impacting the start of the next generation of consoles."
What's your take on GTA V's relationship to next-gen consoles?
[Source: GamesIndustry International]
Our Take
Numbers don't lie – preorders for next-gen consoles have been astoundingly high. Technology, along with consumers, only moves forward with time. Whether it's this holiday season or next, PS3's and Xbox 360's will slowly be replaced by their more modern counterparts. For the time being, however, it's nice to know that games like GTA V will give current-gen gamers a valid reason to delay the inevitable for a little while longer.


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Ross W. Musselman
Promoter, cowboy known as Father of Canyonlands
by Buckley Jensen
Ross W. Musselman was one of the most colorful of San Juan's early cowboy promoters. His love for the beauty of this area, and his efforts to promote it in the East won him the title of "Father of the Canyonlands" in 1949 at a black tie event at the Hotel Utah in Salt Lake City.
Ross was born March 30, 1889 in Fairfield, PA. He was the youngest of three siblings. He married Mae June Roberts in Philadelphia and settled down to a successful career as a railway clerk, YMCA secretary, boys camp director and lecturer.
Ross's older brother Roy was a government trapper in the Four Corners Area and in 1930 Ross made a trip to San Juan County to visit. He fell head over heels in love with the wild, untouched mountains, canyons and deserts of the area.
He was so mesmerized with the country he began to dream about sharing it with others. When he returned to Pennsylvania, all he could do was think about the magnificent places he had visited and he decided to pull up stakes and begin a new career.
He and Mae had a comfortable three story home with a maid, and even though Ross was a born salesman, his greatest "selling" job was convincing Mae that she should trade her beautiful home in the East for a small log home on a small ranch east of Monticello with no maid and no conveniences.
But love prevailed and in l933, the M4 ranch on Boulder, east of Monticello, was established as a base camp for the pack trips Ross planned to sell to "city slickers" in the East.
Every spring, Ross would make the long journey to Pennsylvania and New Jersey to recruit "dudes" to come west for the adventures he promised. They would come west together in a car train, stay at the M4 ranch, and spend the summer taking pack trips and working cattle.
In the beginning it was mostly young men, but later whole families came west for the "adventure of a lifetime." Along with the other activities, Ross took everyone on a three-week horse pack trip over the Blue Mountains, down into Mormon Pasture, through Beef Basin and the Canyonlands, around through Dark Canyon and into the Natural Bridges. Then it was up through the Bears Ears, across Elk Mountain and back to the Ranch at Boulder.
Few veterans of that pack trip did not go back to the East proclaiming that San Juan County Utah was the wildest, most pristine, beautiful, unbelievable, magnificent place on Earth. As Ross's veteran "dudes" told their tales, recruiting got easier.
Ross was the first man to take "tourists" into the Canyonlands on horseback. He was also the first man to take visitors to the Canyonlands by motorized transport.
In 1949, he moved his Ranch at Boulder to the Pack Creek area at the base of the LaSal Mountains in northern San Juan County. He continued to run cattle and host guests and take scenic trips for ten years.
Ross was active in civic and church affairs. In l940 a group of Christian people met at his ranch and with Ross in the lead, organized what would later become known as the San Juan Community Church in Monticello. In 1948, with Ross as building chairman, the building, which now houses the Community Church, was built.
Ross belonged to the Lions Club in Monticello and the Rotary Club in Moab. He was a member of the Chambers of Commerce in both places, a member of the Points and Pebbles Club, the museum board and the Canyonlands Highway Association.
In 1959, his health started to decline and he moved to Moab where he built and operated a rock shop on North Main. He remained active, particularly in trying to get his beloved Canyonlands made into a National Park. He gave hundreds of slide shows in the summer time to tourists behind his rock shop in Moab.
Ross enjoyed people. He had a soft spot in his heart for the Navajos. His son, Rusty said, "I can hardly remember a night when only our family was at the dinner table. There was always a friend, a guest, or someone who just needed a meal.
"Often our guests were Navajos. We enjoyed having them. For vacations when we were small, Dad would take us to visit our Navajo friends. They would see us coming and by the time we got to their place, they would have a hogan all cleaned out with fresh sand on the floor for us to sleep on."
Whenever Ross took his guests from the East to the Reservation his Navajo friends would hold a "sing" for them, which was an experience unlike any of them had ever had.
In 1952 Ross took a reporter from the National Geographic Magazine through the Canyonlands on horseback. The trip resulted in the first article on Canyonlands in the world famous magazine, published in l952.
Both of Ross's M4 ranches were working cattle ranches, as well as dude ranches. He ran cattle all around what is now Arches National Park after he moved to the Pack Creek area. In those days, Arches was a National Monument and there were no fences. When his cows strayed into the Monument, and the Rangers would tell Ross about it. His reply was usually something like, "Well, Damn! Can you believe that? And after we spent all that time teaching them cows how to read those "keep out" signs you boys put up."
One of the favorite memories of his children and grandchildren was sitting around the fireplace at night and having Ross read to them. It was said he claimed his education came as a result of "night school." Indeed, his family said he read in bed virtually every night of his life and loved reading aloud to his family.
One of the memorable events of Ross Musselman's long and colorful life was in 1949 when Utah State Governor, J. Bracken Lee, held a black tie dinner at the ballroom in the old Hotel Utah in Salt Lake in honor of Ross and his lifetime of promoting Southeastern Utah.
The story goes that Ross didn't know the event was a black-tie affair and arrived in a bolo tie. The doorman would not let him in. Ross used his best salesmanship on the determined doorman, but lost the sale.
Finally the governor saw him frantically waving at the door and walked over and said to the doorman, "It's ok. This dude is the guy we are throwing the party for. You better let him in." That night Ross was given the title "Father of the Canyonlands."
Ross Musselman spent most of a lifetime sharing the wonders of San Juan with people from across the world.
He worked much of his later life toward the goal of seeing his beloved Canyons preserved forever as a national park. Canyonlands National Park was created by an act of Congress, just a few weeks after Ross passed away in 1964.
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The chic and sexy Allure stockings from our hosiery collection are the perfect choice for any occasion. Featuring a richly detailed lace trim adds a hint of glamour without compromising on strength.
Information & Care
- 81.7% Polyamide
- 18.3% Elastane
- Elasticated lace top
- We recommend hand wash only


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Post by Sally Lopez of Mini Styling.
I wanted to give Olivia a room of her own. I decided on retro inspired with antique items of my own childhood. The sand dollar wall piece used to hang in my grandparents' house. I was fascinated with it as a kid; and so is Olivia. We designed her room around this old sentimental piece. We chose soft hues of dusty pink, white and beige and filled the space with girly pieces she loves. The Numero 74 canopy and bedding in dusty pink from Lidorworld, wooden toys from Little Wanna Haves, with the white wooden Nofred mouse chair were a perfect fit for her retro playful girly new room. I love it and most importantly, she loves it!
Photos by Dreamypictures


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13 New Psychic Advisors Join The Online Psychic Network
Psychic Readings, Tarot Readings and other Spiritual Guidance available at The Online Psychic Network by new and featured advisors.
Tenafly, NJ – 06-April-2010 – Bitwine Inc. announced today that the online psychic Network continues to grow and is welcoming more psychics to its community of advisors. "We are thrilled to showcase our newest psychic advisors. Everyday new advisors are joining our network!" says Jennifer Glover, Community Relationship Manager for The Online Psychic Network. "These new advisors continue to provide their specialized and professional services which range from tarot card readings, to psychic chat, answering questions about love and relationships, soul mate connections, money and career concerns and much more."
Tarot reading, mediums, online psychic chat and more!
The Love Psychic is one of the newest featured advisors at the Online Psychic Network. "Practicing in this field from a young age I began conducting readings for family and friends." says the Love Psychic. "I have perfected my technique to bring you the most accurate predictions. I give a risk free money back guarantee."
Psychic Visions By Samantha has been seeing into the future and Reading peoples Energy for over 20 years. "I combine my God given gift of clairvoyance with unique ability to bond with my clients." Samantha indicates. "I don't tell you what you want to hear; I will tell you the truth in your life. I will tell you what I see in your situation. No problem is too hard for me to solve and I can bring love and happiness. My psychic abilities have helped many in the past!" "We are thrilled to showcase our newest psychic advisors. Everyday new advisors are joining our network!"
Diosa Readings provides Inner Guidance on Love, Money, Career issues. "I am Spiritual Counselor/Life Coach/Intuitive Tarot card reader & healer providing in depth readings on love, money and career." Diosa continues, "I help my clients sort through the illusions and find the truth, along with providing fast, accurate and honest answers. Often times my clients just need clarification on a particular situation and I provide healing and tranquility through my readings. I use the cards as a divination tool. I am a member of the American Tarot Association and I am certified in both Reiki & Pranic energy healing. I also have a degree in psychology, which helps me look at all angles with a compassionate soul. I believe in helping you tap into & trust your own intuitive abilities."
MaryBeth discovered her abilities at the age of 7 years old, and has been using these psychic gifts for over 23 years. "Everyone has questions," says MaryBeth. "I am here to help you and to guide you. Do you seek the truth? Do you wonder what someone is feeling or thinking about you? Do you wonder about your career? Do you wonder why you're feeling the way you're feeling? I will use my Spiritual Psychic gift and my guides to get you to the truth. The answers are more than just a yes or a no. Let's get to the core of the matter and work on a solution to promote positive change in your life giving you the clarity you need!"
Accurate and Professional Psychic readings
It is very important for clients to receive accurate information and guidance when they are looking for a psychic reading. The advisors at the Online Psychic Network provide professional services, which include honest and accurate information, and at affordable prices. "The prices that our advisors charge range from a few cents per minute to flat rate fees, which provide affordable and accurate details and insights to clients at a price that they can afford!" explains the Community Relationship Manager of the network, Jennifer Glover. "No matter the budget, there is an advisor available. The advisors provide online tarot readings, psychic readings, clairvoyant sessions; many different abilities and services which can provide the insights and guidance needed to make choices and decisions now in the present or in the future."
The Online Psychic Network charges one of the lowest commission fees within the industry, which in turn these savings are passed on to the clients.
About the Online Psychic Network The Online Psychic Network is quickly becoming the top destination place for anyone looking for guidance about love, relationship and life's day to day challenges. Trusted psychics and spiritual advisors are available online for one-on-one tarot readings, spiritual coaching, and connection with deceased loved ones.
About BitWine Founded in 2006, BitWine is an innovator in the areas of personal consulting and counseling. Our global network allows prospective clients to meet and hire specialists from all over in the world in nutrition, technology, travel, psychic counseling, tarot card reading and more anonymously and all from the comfort of the client's home.
Media Contact Jennifer Glover Community Relationship Manager [email protected] (201)338-5019


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Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Textbooks
Browse New & Used Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Textbooks
The medical world has many different topics to focus on. One of them includes the idea of physical medicine and the process of rehabilitation. If this topic is included in your college course, buy used physical medicine and rehabilitation textbooks here today and save an incredible amount over what you'd pay if you purchased at the cover prices. We can offer huge savings when you buy cheap physical medicine and rehabilitation textbooks including Kinesiology: Scientific Basis of Human Motion, Rehabilitation Techniques in Sports Medicine and Electrotherapy, to name just three. However, these just skim the surface of the affordable and pre-owned books you can buy in their hundreds. Whatever stage of your college course you are at, make sure you have the books to help you along. Rent used physical medicine and rehabilitation textbooks now and sell back to us any you're already finished with. It's a no brainer way to succeed at college on a small budget.


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LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- BP posted a massive quarterly loss of $17.2 billion Tuesday due to costs stemming from the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
BP (BP) said it took a pretax charge of $32.2 billion in the quarter related to the oil spill, the worst in U.S. history.
That charge includes the $20 billion fund the company agreed to set up in June to cover damages related to the spill. The charge is "based on the belief that we are not grossly negligent," said BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, during a call with analysts.
Whether BP is guilty of gross negligence will ultimately be decided in the court.
If the embattled company is found at fault for recklessness, it will be liable for all penalties and fines -- if not, it will only have to pay a portion of the fines.
The rest of the fines would be paid by Anadarko Petroleum, which owns 25% of the well, and Mitsui Oil Exploration, which owns 10%. Both companies are BP's minority non-operating partners in the ruptured well.
As long as BP is not found grossly negligent, Oppenheimer energy analyst Fadel Gheit said the steps BP has taken will allow the company to pay their share of the fines, and still reinstate the dividend to shareholders soon.
"BP has gone through the budgeting process and made the necessary decisions, because it doesn't want to get forced into doing something it's not ready for," Gheit said. "The market is going to be able to breathe much easier."
In addition to the countless claims and ongoing investigations, BP said the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a separate informal probe into "securities matters" related to the incident.
The SEC declined comment.
The second-quarter results were the first look at company's financials since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people.
They were a far cry from the year-ago period, when BP posted a net profit of $4.4 billion for the three months ending in June.
In a bid to make a fresh start and turnaround its reputation, the company announced a long-awaited change in leadership Tuesday, replacing CEO Tony Hayward with Robert Dudley, the American who has been overseeing the day-to-day Gulf spill response since June.
"I do not underestimate the nature of the task ahead," Dudley said. But he said the company's financial standing, along with its asset portfolio, would help put BP "on the road to recovery."
The transfer of power to Dudley was widely expected and a welcomed move.
"Dudley's reputation is that of a cool-headed troubleshooter. He's been in charge of the oil spill clean up for the last month or so, and he's been doing a good job," said Alex Morris, energy analyst at Raymond James. "The fact that he's an American will also help deflect some of the pressure BP has been getting out of Washington.
The disaster has taken a heavy toll on BP, wiping billions off its market value. But BP stock has bounced recently, gaining 8% over the last five trading days, amid expectations of Hayward's departure.
Excluding non-operating items and the $32.2 billion oil spill charge, BP posted an underlying replacement cost profit of $5 billion for the quarter, up 70% from $2.9 billion in same period last year.
"There was a huge range of expectations coming into the quarter, but it looks like sans oil spill costs, BP had a decent quarter," Morris said. "The results show that BP is still one of the largest oil and gas companies with solid operations around the world."
BP is aiming to put the Gulf disaster behind it. It wants to pay the majority of the direct oil-spill costs by the end of the year, but it conceded that it will face indirect damages for some time.
"Other costs are likely to be spread over a number of years, including any fines and penalties, longer-term remediation, compensation and litigation costs," Hayward said.
The company said it was not possible to accurately estimate the extent of future claims.
BP may have to pay fines to the U.S. government for violating the Clean Water Act. Some estimates put that tally as high as $18 billion. Legal challenges and other penalties are also likely to cast a shadow over the company for some time.
The oil giant said it is taking steps to make sure it has the funds necessary to cover future costs, including cutting its debt and unloading assets over the next 18 months.
BP said it plans to sell up to $30 billion of assets. That includes the $7 billion in oil and gas properties it recently sold to Apache Corp. (APA, Fortune 500)
Though the asset sales are a little higher than Morris was expecting, he said they should give BP sufficient financial flexibility to deal with future oil spill costs and liabilities.
"Every step they've announced seems to be one in the right direction," Morris added.
The company also plans to lower its net debt to between $10 and $15 billion over the period. By comparison, its debt was $23 billion at the end of last month.
BP said it will consider reinstating its dividend in February 2011. Under heavy pressure, the company in June suspended its quarterly dividend for the rest of the year.
Capital spending through next year will be about $18 billion annually, in line with earlier estimates, the company said.
-- CNNMoney.com staff reporter Hibah Yousuf contributed to this report.
Index | Last | Change | % Change |
Dow | 32,627.97 | -234.33 | -0.71% |
Nasdaq | 13,215.24 | 99.07 | 0.76% |
Treasuries | 1.73 | 0.00 | 0.12% |
Company | Price | Change | % Change |
Ford Motor Co | 8.29 | 0.05 | 0.61% |
Advanced Micro Devic... | 54.59 | 0.70 | 1.30% |
Cisco Systems Inc | 47.49 | -2.44 | -4.89% |
General Electric Co | 13.00 | -0.16 | -1.22% |
Kraft Heinz Co | 27.84 | -2.20 | -7.32% |
Bankrupt toy retailer tells bankruptcy court it is looking at possibly reviving the Toys 'R' Us and Babies 'R' Us brands. More |
Land O'Lakes CEO Beth Ford charts her career path, from her first job to becoming the first openly gay CEO at a Fortune 500 company in an interview with CNN's Boss Files. More |
Honda and General Motors are creating a new generation of fully autonomous vehicles. More |
In 1998, Ntsiki Biyela won a scholarship to study wine making. Now she's about to launch her own brand. More |
Whether you hedge inflation or look for a return that outpaces inflation, here's how to prepare. More |


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- Unit Testing Framework for Lua
is a unit testing framework for lua, written in lua.
It provides currently 27 assert functions, 8 type checking functions
and a few miscellaneous functions for usage as an easy unit testing framework.
To run lunit
you need Lua 5.1 or newer.
To find out more about Lua, please take a look at
The Programming Language Lua.
To find out more about unit testing, look at Unit Test - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
5. November 2009: Lunit Version 0.5 released.
This release adds the function assert_match_error()
and should be
more compatible with Darwin and Mac OS X. A few bugs were fixed.
Lunit is quite stable in the meantime.
5. January 2008: Lunit Version 0.4 released.
This is mostly a complete rewrite. It supports Lua-5.1 only, and uses the Lua
module system. Included is a shell script that should make using lunit
easy. Support for different test runner plugins has been added. The included
default test runner is a console test runner.
The package is still not complete but was used internally for the last 2 years with great success.
22. August 2004: Lunit Version 0.3 (alpha) released.
New function lunit.wrap() to wrap a single function into a complete testcase added. Additionally, on test failures the stacktrace will shown.
18. August 2004: Lunit Version 0.2 (alpha) released.
This is the second release of lunit to the public. It fixes an ugly bug and adds a bunch of new tests to its own test suite. Everybody who downloaded the 0.1 alpha release, should upgrade as soon as possible. Additionally, all assert functions return the actual value on success like the build-in lua assert().
15. August 2004: Lunit Version 0.1 (alpha) released.
This is the first release of lunit for public review. It contains full documentation and a few examples.
The example file "my_testcase.lua" with the following content:
require "lunit" module( "my_testcase", lunit.testcase ) function test_success() assert_false( false, "This test never fails.") end function test_failure() fail( "This test always fails!" ) end
Run with the shell script "lunit" produces the following output:
# ./lunit my_testcase.lua Loaded testsuite with 2 tests in 1 testcases. F. 2 Assertions checked. 1) Failure (my_testcase.test_failure): my_testcase.lua:10: failure my_testcase.lua:10: This test always fails! Testsuite finished (1 passed, 1 failed, 0 errors).
Brief documentation is available: documentation-0.4.txt
Lunit is available as a gziped tar archive. Examples and documentation as well as a complete self testsuite are included.
The archives are signed using GPG with my key
(GPG Signature: lunit-0.5.tar.gz.sig
)Old releases:
(GPG Signature: lunit-0.4.tar.gz.sig
(GPG Signature: lunit-0.3alpha.tar.gz.sig
(GPG Signature: lunit-0.3alpha.zip.sig
(GPG Signature: lunit-0.2alpha.tar.gz.sig
(GPG Signature: lunit-0.2alpha.zip.sig
(GPG Signature: lunit-0.1alpha.tar.gz.sig
)Lunit source code is hosted at GitHub (https://github.com/mrothNET/lunit):
git clone https://github.com/mrothNET/lunit.git
is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.
Please feel free to send questions, suggestions, feature requests and bug reports to Michael Roth <email@example.com>.


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"Flu is a highly political issue, to put it mildly," Terry Jones wrote this morning, and that's what I'm going to talk about -- not the science of it. Because science is only part of what we'll be facing in the coming days.
Whether or not history records April 2009 as the genesis of a global pandemic, there are some things we can expect with near certainty: Rumors, reports, controversy, credibility gaps and fear. So please bear these things in mind and, if you agree with these ideas, help spread them. Because fear is a deadly virus, too, and just as networked media can help spread it, network media can also serve as an immune system response to fear IF WE KEEP OUR HEADS AND WORK TOGETHER.


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The Original "Mahna Mahna"
It's a fair bet that you've heard "Mahna Mahna" from The Muppet Show. If you're of a certain age, just mentioning "Mahna Mahna" starts the tune in your head, and you're off to the races! (Doo-doo-dee-doo-doo, doo-doo-dee-doo!!) But while most of us think of the song as the opening number on the original Muppet Show, its first Muppet rendition came on an early episode of Sesame Street, performed by a trio of then-nameless "anything Muppets" just messing around. Check this out, and note how the backing vocals go "bah-dee-pee-tee-pee" rather than "doo-doo-doo":
The song got more play on The Ed Sullivan Show later in 1969, now with the characteristic Snowth singers. By now, the male singer is a character named Bip Bippadotta and has flaming orange hair:
Versions then appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, This is Tom Jones, and Pure Goldie before its most famous turn on The Muppet Show in 1977 as the first sketch ever aired on the show. This is the version I know best, and it defines The Muppet Show for me:
But let's rewind once more -- the original song was written by Piero Umiliani for an Italian film about...wait for it...sex in Sweden! What?! The film Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso (translated: Sweden, Heaven and Hell) first used the song in 1968, making that its first appearance ever (albeit with no Muppets). In those days, it went by "Mah Nà Mah Nà" and served as the score to this scene involving a sauna (don't worry, everyone remains clothed):
And that, my friends, is the original, original "Mahna Mahna." In 2011, the Muppets released it as a single and it's been stuck in my head ever since.


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But splendid, just, and great of mind,
The childless king for offspring pined.
No son had he his name to grace,
Transmitter of his royal race.
Long had his anxious bosom wrought,
And as he pondered rose the thought:
'A votive steed 'twere good to slay,
So might a son the gift repay.'
Before his lords his plan he laid,
And bade them with their wisdom aid:
Then with these words Sumantra, best
Of royal counsellors, addressed:
'Hither, Vas'ishtha at their head,
Let all my priestly guides be led.'
To him Sumantra made reply:
'Hear, Sire, a tale of days gone by.
To many a sage in time of old,
Sanatkumár, the saint, foretold
How from thine ancient line, O King,
A son, when years came round, should spring.
'Here dwells,' 'twas thus the seer began,
'Of Kas'yap's 1 race, a holy man,
Vibhándak named: to him shall spring
A son, the famous Rishyas'ring.
Bred with the deer that round him roam,
The wood shall be that hermit's home.
To him no mortal shall be known
Except his holy sire alone.
Still by those laws shall he abide
Which lives of youthful Bráhmans guide,
Obedient to the strictest rule
That forms the young ascetic's school:
And all the wondering world shall hear
Of his stern life and penance drear;
His care to nurse the holy fire
And do the bidding of his sire.
Then, seated on the Angas' 1b throne,
Shall Lomapád to fame be known.
But folly wrought by that great king
A plague upon the land shall bring;
No rain for many a year shall fall
And grievous drought shall ruin all.
The troubled king with many a prayer
Shall bid the priests some cure declare:
'The lore of Heaven 'tis yours to know,
Nor are ye blind to things below:
Declare, O holy men, the way
This plague to expiate and stay.'
Those best of Bráhmans shall reply:
'By every art, O Monarch, try
Hither to bring Vibhándak's child,
Persuaded, captured, or beguiled.
And when the boy is hither led
To him thy daughter duly wed.'
But how to bring that wondrous boy
His troubled thoughts will long employ,
And hopeless to achieve the task
He counsel of his lords will ask,
And bid his priests and servants bring
With honour saintly Rishyas'ring.
But when they hear the monarch's speech,
All these their master will beseech,
With trembling hearts and looks of woe,
To spare them, for they fear to go.
And many a plan will they declare
And crafty plots will frame,
And promise fair to show him there,
Unforced, with none to blame.
On every word his lords shall say,
The king will meditate,
And on the third returning day
Recall them to debate.
Then this shall be the plan agreed,
That damsels shall be sent
Attired in holy hermits' weed,
And skilled in blandishment,
That they the hermit may beguile
With every art and amorous wile
Whose use they know so well,
And by their witcheries seduce
The unsuspecting young recluse
To leave his father's cell.
Then when the boy with willing feet
Shall wander from his calm retreat
And in that city stand,
The troubles of the king shall end,
And streams of blessed rain descend
Upon the thirsty land.
Thus shall the holy Rishyas'ring
To Lomapád, the mighty king,
By wedlock be allied;
For S'ántá, fairest of the fair,
In mind and grace beyond compare,
Shall be his royal bride.
He, at the Offering of the Steed,
The flames with holy oil shall feed,
And for King Das'aratha gain
Sons whom his prayers have begged in vain.'
'I have repeated, Sire, thus far,
The words of old Sanatkumár,
In order as he spoke them then
Amid the crowd of holy men.'
Then Das'aratha cried with joy,
'Say how they brought the hermit boy.'
15:1 Kas'yap was a grandson of the God Brahmá. He is supposed to have given his name to Kashmír = Kas'yapa-míra, Kas'yap's Lake.
15:1b The people of Anga. 'Anga is said in the lexicons to be Bengal; but here certainly another region is intended situated at the confluence of the Sarjú with the Ganges, and not far distant from Das'aratha's dominions.' GORRESIO. It comprised part of Behar and Bhagulpur.


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Parents are often unsure about when to take a child to a dentist. Should you wait until all of his teeth have come in, or perhaps until there is a real problem? The experts say no. The American Dental Association and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry recommend that a child's first visit should be when the first tooth erupts in the mouth, no later than age one to two.
According to Dr. Anna Guarna, a Connecticut dentist with over twenty years of experience, this first visit isn't for doing any real work. It's really about introducing your child to the dentist's office, allowing him to explore various instruments and even take a ride in the chair. Only after your child is comfortable is it time for the dentist to take a quick peek at his mouth.
This first visit accomplishes three things. First, it familiarizes your child with the staff and the office environment in a non-threatening way, thus building trust. Second, it introduces him (and you) to the specific language that the office uses. For example, Guarna's office refers to a probe as a "tooth counter," gauze as a "tooth pillow," and the drill/hand piece as a "tooth sweeper" to take away the fear often associated with these items. Third, it allows the dentist to do a quick examination, looking for decay. He will also check your child's gums, jaw, and bite, keeping an eye out for bottle caries, frenum issues, or other problems that may affect teeth or speech patterns. The dentist will also probably talk to you about good oral hygiene and allow you to ask any questions you may have. You may even want to bring a list of questions to the appointment.
From the first visit onward, Guarna recommends that children come in every six months, unless an issue comes up that needs correction, such as a lisp, teeth grinding or mouth breathing. Expect the dentist to build on first visit and add a step at each subsequent visit. For example, at the second visit, the dentist may count your child's teeth and brush them with polishing paste, then possibly add in fluoride at the visit after that.
Depending on your dentist and your child's comfort level, you may be asked to hold your child while the dentist takes a look in his mouth. After the first visit, you may be asked to step outside so your toddler can gain a sense of independence and confidence and have the opportunity to get to know the dentist and staff on his own.
By the time the child is about three years old, he will be having full dental appointments. X-rays will be taken at five years of age if the child can handle it and it has been a good experience in the past.


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Venice Carnival 2007
At now we haven't received yet the full calendar of events.
As every year, the private events organizers add their events inside our web sites.
You can browse these events click on the events date.
Dates are: 9th – 20th Feb. 2007.
News from the Venice Carnival official Web Site
It will be a popular, widely spread and amusing Carnival. It will be an event involving the whole town and its citizens, as well as hundreds of thousands of guests.
The show offered to such a variegated multitude will be direct, immediate and emotional. Music, ballet, theatre, circus and all the arts dear to people's hearts, will be part of an event whose roots delve many centuries into the past.
In 2007 it will be the Tricentenary of our writer and playwright Carlo Goldoni, one of the most representative artists in our Venetian literary and theatrical tradition. And more than anyone else, he will represent the Carnival's "folklore", its popularity, its being "everybody's event", no one excluded
The leading thread of the coming Carnival took inspiration from an artcle in his memoirs. Goldoni and his company will travel virtually around the world to meet artists from every country.
It will be a mosaic of arts, a masquerade, made up of so many pieces, so many different, diversified, amusing themes.
The past edition experience has also been of service in programming this new event.
The most appealing shows in 2006? Undoubtedly the great Goran Bregovic and his splendid performance of the Taranta with an overwhelming "Pizzica" in St Mark's Square
Music in the world, to make the world dance.
St Mark's Square will feature more music for dancing, pop, folk, with international artists like Afro Celt Sound System, Bollywood Brass Band, Roy Paci and Aretuska, as well as many others.
We shall also witness a battle, with no dead or casualties, the "Marching Bands Collision". Latin-American bands will play on the go, bumping into Scottish bagpipe players, finishing with the extraordinary "Funk Off", the most famous Italian marching band, back from Umbria Jazz and the celebrated Orvieto Musical New Year's Eve.
In addition, a circus like a theatre with "Creatures" and the "Magic of Fire" directed by Chiarenza, and dozens of Commedia dell'Arte performances, on their typical small comedy stages, acting out centuries-old Venetian popular theatre.
A great event, "Venezia Suona" (Venice plays), will be a guest at Venice Carnival: dozens of musicians will perform around the streets in Cannaregio and not only, there will also be a concert by the Band of Venice, especially invented and created for our city by Gianantonio De Vincenzo and his friends from "Il Suono Improvviso".
We shall see a grand show procession by the most important costume atelier in Venice, Atelier Nicolao: hundreds of extraordinary costumes, as part of a display that will transform a woman into a rosebud…
Carnival 2007 will not only be new artists, but also new dates and new rendez-vous.
Febuary 9 will be "Venice Day". The town will welcome guests from the world, offering the best of its artistic expressions. The "Maries Fête", now refreshed and updated, will play an important part, then a grand concert from our best 18th century music tradition, Pantalone and Harlequin to entertain the public, ending with the Band of Venice to close a truly Venetian day.
The next day, 10 February, for the first time, children will be absolute masters in St Mark's Square. A great competition and procession for all elementary schools in Venice, stilts, clowns, fire-eaters. A kids' only musical concert with "La mente di Tetsuya", famed performers of cartoon soundtracks, ending with acrobats and the magic of "Creatures".
On Sunday we shall see a yet secret new "Angel", to start with a great week of entertainment, closing with grand firework music over St Mark's waterfront. An exceptional godmother who will confer the awards for the great international masked competition, an extraordinary beauty from the East … the name cannot yet be revealed.
But Carnival will not only be St Mark's Square. Children will find their "Enchanted Wood" in Campo San Polo, with lots of animation and games, only for the smallest, while youngsters may enjoy music in Campo Bella Vienna, with the best trend groups of the moment, and nightbirds will have the Marittima to live through the night, and maybe, a yet secret new location at Castello…
Cannaregio will host the music by Venezia Suona, while Castello will be alight with theatre shows and a new itinerant suggestion, winding through the streets…
Mestre and its small revolution, finally with a distinct, definite, metropolitan identity.
A great novelty: the date.
Mestre Carnival will start a week later, on Sunday 18 February, when the baton borne by Carlo Goldoni will arrive over the Canal Salso by gondola and give the go-ahead to the "Donkey's Flight", a fun parody of the Venetian Angel!
Shrove Tuesday will be celebrated together in Venice, closing on Sunday 25 February after three days of music and dancing in Piazza Ferretto.
The entire city, islands, peninsula, and mainland will be disguised and animated by thousands of masked faces, popular music, and dancing to experience together.
"Is Venice the Carnival ? No Sirs, pardon me : Carnival is Venice!"
Venice Carnival 2007
Inside these pages you will find the full official calendar of events. Remember also that for the events, time and place could be changed.


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Swing voters asserted their independence again on Election Day 2011, repudiating Republican ideological overreach in key votes but denying Democrats clear-cut victories heading into 2012, as the cycle of over-reach and backlash continues.
In Mississippi, the anti-abortion "personhood" amendment to the state constitution was decisively defeated 58 percent to 42 percent, while at the same time Republican gubernatorial nominee Phil Bryant won 59 percent of the vote over Democrat Johnnie Dupree. The two votes are evidence of significant ticket-splitting, even in this bastion of the Bible belt—a recognition that some measures are simply too extreme, and Republicans do not automatically vote in lockstep with the religious right.
The wisdom of the effort to have fetuses declared full human beings was questioned by national right to life groups and even Jacksonville's Catholic bishop as going too far and undercutting the long-term chances of overturning Roe v. Wade.
For those keeping score at home, the personhood amendment has now been rejected in three consecutive elections—Colorado in 2008 and 2010, and Mississippi in 2011. If it could not succeed in a low-turnout, off-cycle election in one of the most conservative states in the nation, this particular attempt to do an end run around Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose seems to have come to an end, though supporters will no doubt keep trying in other states.
In Ohio, Republican Gov. John Kasich's collective bargaining reform was decisively defeated by a margin of 63 percent to 36 percent, marking a major victory for union forces in a test of their ability to get out the vote in advance of 2012.
The Buckeye State's public-sector collective-bargaining reform followed the same lines as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's controversial measures. Advocates said they were necessary to rein in long-term costs, while opponents called them ideologically driven union-busting legislation. In the end, there seemed to be broad recognition that the Republicans had overreached with the scope of this legislation, even as specific portions of the bill—such as requiring government workers to pay in a bit more for their health care—retained broad-based support and may be resuscitated in the next legislative session.
But before Democrats break out the Champagne with talk about how the Ohio vote, and Kasich's unpopularity, indicates the likelihood of a pivotal win in the state in 2012, the same voters rejected a key provision of President Obama's signature health-care legislation by a similar margin, giving Ohio the ability to opt out of the individual mandate. In other words, many swing voters who rejected the collective-bargaining reform also voted against the individual mandate. So while the union ground game has been successfully tested, opposition the health-care law has its nose under the swing-state tent. This is not a clear-cut liberal victory.
One final note on Ohio: these two ballot initiatives spurred more than $40 million in special-interest spending, including more than $30 million by unions seeking to overturn collective bargaining. Tip O'Neill's maxim that all politics is local has been turned on its head—increasingly, all local politics is national.
An additional anti-extreme proof-point came in Arizona, where a rare recall vote succeeded—this time, not a bout of RINO hunting but an effort to turn out conservative State Senator Russell Pearce, author of the controversial immigration status inquiry bill and an ally of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He lost not to a Democrat but a comparatively centrist Republican, Jerry Lewis, who reported incidents of attempted intimidation and was frustrated with Pearce giving a tone of intolerance to their community.
To round out the swing-voter theme of the night, Kentucky reelected its Democratic governor, Steve Beshear, with 56 percent of the vote over his Republican rival, a conservative populist clown who spent the last week of his campaign trying to make Hinduism an election issue. This marks the second off-cycle gubernatorial election Democrats have won this fall in the Appalachian region, following West Virginia Democratic incumbent Earl Ray Tomblin's win last month. These Democratic wins have not drawn much attention, despite running counter to conventional wisdom. Yes, these states are overwhelmingly likely to vote Republican in 2012, but the fact that Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul's home state reelected a Democrat as governor shows that voters are not pulling the lever in lockstep with one party.
So what are the lessons that Election Night 2011 held for 2012?
First, the conservative landslide of 2010 has hit its limits and is beginning to inspire a broad-based backlash. The rejection of the personhood amendment and collective-bargaining reform reflects a pushback against ideological overreaches. It follows the current unpopularity of swing state Republican governors like John Kasich, Wisconsin's Walker, and Florida's Rick Scott, who narrowly rode the 2010 wave into office and quickly inspired buyer's remorse. In the high turnout 2012 election, it is hard to see how experience with these executives will inspire these swing-state voters to endorse unified conservative control of Washington.
The union mobilization in Ohio does reflect a resurgent ability to find common cause with moderates and the middle class. But the rejection of the individual mandate makes the vote a split decision in the Buckeye State.
In past recessions, populist anger was directed at either big business or big government. Now voter anger is directed at both, and the two parties are having a hard time adjusting their left/right playbooks to account for this shift. The anti-incumbent narrative likewise failed last night, as Kentucky Democrat Beshear was easily reelected. Instead, there seem to be a consistent impulse to reject ideological overreach, a reassuring sign of rational ticket-splitting even in this overheated political environment. Neither party should feel false confidence heading into 2012.


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"It's an amazing machine," says businessman and art collector Alan Gibbs, on the telephone from a Detroit hotel room. "The power flows out of it like a river of water. . . . It pours out. When you're watching it, you're just absolutely gripped by it. There's no other work of art that's more fascinating."
For centuries, humankind has dreamed of harnessing the terrifying, destructive, and beautiful power of lightning. Since the 19th century, devices like the Tesla coil, which produces high-voltage, alternating-current electricity, have replicated its effects. But in the early 1990s, Gibbs began a quest to forge one Tesla coil to rule them all. In other words, to create artificial lightning on the scale of what Zeus might chuck.
In her short film "Lightning Dreams: The Electrum at Gibbs Farm," Boston-based filmmaker Alberta Chu charts Gibbs's passion for harnessing power as he commissions the world's largest Tesla coil, "Electrum (for Len Lye)," for his estate in his native New Zealand. Chu's film makes its world premiere at the Museum of Science on Wednesday, as part of an event called "Lightning Strikes."
"I've always been interested in the intersection of science and art, the collision of science and art. You can't separate the two," says Chu, who has made films for PBS, National Geographic, and Discovery/The Learning Channel, and now runs an independent documentary film production company called ASKlabs. Originally a biologist, Chu entered filmmaking through the back door — by providing advice to science-fiction film productions. "We consulted on the 'X-Men' movies. In 'Wolverine,' [we consulted] about what his special abilities might be."
Her "Lightning Dreams," Chu says, was 15 years in the making. She made a previous short film about Gibbs's Tesla coil project, "Electrum: Science as Art," released in 2000 and shown on PBS. The new film, commissioned by Gibbs, contains almost entirely unseen footage.
Part art work, part science folly, "Electrum" was installed in 1998 next to the house on Gibbs's farm just north of Auckland. The 38-foot-tall kinetic lightning sculpture, made of stainless steel, fiberglass, concrete, and black granite, channels 3 million volts of power, throwing snakes of electricity 50 feet long into the sky.
"Richard Serra says anything that's useful can't be art," Gibbs says. "This is useless, unless you want to electrocute someone."
The most gorgeous moments in Chu's film emanate from that device; the footage is mesmerizing. "Lightning Dreams" is also the only way to see the massive
Tesla coil in action; Gibbs Farm is occasionally open for public tours, but not at night, when Gibbs sometimes fires up his "Electrum." "We set it up when we have guests," says the jet-setting entrepreneur, whose current project is an amphibious, James Bond-like vehicle called the Quadski, currently in production in Detroit.
Since installing "Electrum" on his 1,000-acre estate, Gibbs has commissioned numerous site-specific sculptures by many of the world's leading minimalist artists — Serra, Anish Kapoor, Andy Goldsworthy, and Maya Lin, among others — all spectacularly showcased in the film's many helicopter shots.
Because the Tesla coil project took almost five years to build, film editor Sabrina Zanella-Foresi had an abundance of footage that she winnowed to the 30-minute documentary. "What was amazing about 'Lightning Dreams,' " says Zanella-Foresi, "was seeing so much archival material of the project being constructed and made. It's rare to have that kid of documentation when you make films about art. It was an amazing texture to work with."
To construct "Electrum," Gibbs hired two men: the late Eric Orr, an artist known for working with unusual sources such as gold, fire, water, and dry ice, who designed the tower with a stainless-steel cage (a.k.a. "Faraday Cage") at the top; and Greg Leyh, a renowned high-voltage engineer and member of the Survival Research Laboratories anarchist machine performance art group.
Leyh was tasked with constructing and troubleshooting the Tesla coil in California before shipping it to New Zealand. "During development," Leyh said in an e-mail, "one of the electrodes came loose and punched a hole in the side of my truck."
"Alan likes to push people and get the best out of them," Chu says.
Leyh took a year's leave from his job to make Electrum. His company, Lightning on Demand, is working on a project called the Lightning Foundry in Nevada to create two, 10-story-high Tesla coils that could blast bolts of electricity 200 feet or farther. "Even in the 21st century, lightning still holds many secrets from us," he says. "I want to build a machine that can finally start to explore these unknown mechanisms."
"Among the Tesla coil community, [Leyh is] like a rock star or legend," says Daniel Davis, Museum of Science program manager and a lightning and high-voltage physicist.
The museum's own electricity-generating devices will also flex their muscles at the event. Following a screening of the film and a conversation with Leyh, Davis, and Chu, the museum's Tesla coils and its Van de Graaff generator — which happens to be the world's largest and was built by the late MIT physics professor Robert J. Van de Graaff — will cap the evening with a custom lightning show.
"We'll kick it up a notch," promises Davis.
Steampunk enthusiasts are invited to come dressed to the nines. The best costumes will earn a special "prize."
"The winners, up to three people," says Chu, "will get the chance to be inside the Faraday Cage while being zapped by electricity."
"Lightning Strikes" event at the Museum of Science, Nov. 7 at 6:45 p.m; tickets $15. For more information and to buy tickets: www.mos.org/events_activities/events. Ethan Gilsdorf can be reached at ethan@


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WhatsApp 2.12.126 APK for Android
WhatsApp for Android Features:
WhatsApp Messenger is a messaging app available for Android and other smartphones. WhatsApp uses your phone's Internet connection (4G/3G/2G/EDGE or Wi-Fi, as available) to message and call friends and family. Switch from SMS to WhatsApp to send and receive messages, calls, photos, videos, and Voice Messages.
Download WhatsApp 2.12.126 Android APK
You can download the APK file for WhatsApp 220.127.116.11 from here: Download WhatsApp 188.8.131.52 APK– (Google Play Store).